First Science of Team Science Conference at Northwestern April 22

Scientists will learn how to be team players to speed discoveries

CHICAGO --- Teamwork is increasingly critical for scientists to speed discoveries that improve human health. Yet scientists -- unlike athletic or business teams -- generally receive no coaching on how to be good team players.

Northwestern University, a leader in team-based research, hopes to change that with the first- ever Annual International Science of Team Science Conference April 22 to 24 in Chicago. The conference on the science of team science, an emerging discipline, will examine team-based research and the way research teams organize, communicate and conduct research.

The science of team science is a discipline that empirically examines how teams connect and collaborate to achieve scientific breakthroughs that would not be achieved by individual efforts and also examines ways to define, track and measure the efficiency and success of the science team.

"Northwestern is a champion of this emerging field of interdisciplinary study, which is why we decided to develop an annual conference related to the science of team science," says Holly Falk-Krzesinski, research assistant professor and director of Research Team Support at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and chair of the conference. "We encourage people to share their work, gain feedback and make connections with potential collaborators."

The conference is being sponsored by the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute at Feinberg, the School of Communication and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems.

The conference will feature thought leaders from across the globe including Daniel Stokols, a professor from the University of California-Irvine, and Kara Hall, a health scientist at the National Cancer Institute, who coined the phrase "science of team science."

Conference participants -- investigators studying science teams, team science practitioners, data providers, knowledge management/social networking database developers and representatives from federal funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health -- will learn how empirical findings from team science research can translate into evidence-based guidance for scientific teams, ultimately helping those teams perform better.